Requited Love
by FeatheredMask
Summary: As Haruka fades from Ene's memory, a bug appears in her programming that might just help her hold onto him.
1. Wake Up

**Requited Love**

"_Taka-"_

Binary code fed through the CPU in the background, reading onto the screen as a electrical blue. Art, the program forced the resolution to format more pixels than it had ever rendered. Impossible blue eyes scanned data without a 1 or 0 missed.

File names. Folders, video files. Picture .jpegs. Compressed .zip files. Porn of varying vulgarity passed through Ene's scans without issue, occasionally putting a corrupted file in quarantine. Video game files, program files, zombie game save files passed unhindered, once things that would have made her pause and frown.

"_Takane-"_

In the physical sense, she had no mouth to smile with unless her facsimile of a cyber girl was taken into account. She had no mental concept of anything, her coding, although genius, being only a mockery of the human mind.

Blue light filled half the bedroom, flickering with Ene's graphics as a teen slept in a burrow of blankets in the dark half. The computer gave a soft hum, the speakers disconnected and unplugged in a last ditch attempt to keep a surprise early alarm from waking him and his mother. His soft, slow breathing of sleep slipped under the humming in a healthy pattern. It hitched , and shuddered, then returned to the waves of REM sleep. The nightmare wasn't bad tonight.

"_Takane, wake up."_

Ene divided her focus, the scan slowing and basic computer settings running as the RAM memory processed the new audio file that had slipped through the firewall. Extra scans showed nothing malicious, and its origin appeared to have cleared itself from the computer history. She pressed play.

Bump. Bump, bump. _"Takane, it's time to wake up."_

A different result. Curiosity peeked, the computer intelligence had to investigate and learn. The scientific method had four basic steps: Observe. Hypothesis. Test. Revise hypothesis as necessary.

Observation, done. Two plays had two different results, so onto hypothesis: if she played the file again, it would play something entirely different, unless it only had two options. The coding followed different rules than any coding language she could understand, and could not figure out the programming behind it.

Play.

"_Takaneeee."_ Bump. Bump. _"You have to wake up, you know it's going to rain!"_

The name at the beginning struck a chord with her, but the voice remained a puzzle. Ene pulled up the forecast for the day, and found that the day was predicted to have little chance of rain.

"I'm not asleep, and it's not going to rain," Ene replied with a pout, speaking as how she would communicate to Shintaro, seeing as the file had addressed her. With the speakers disconnected, no sound came from the computer, as expected. To her surprise, the file played again, this time with a line of male giggling.

The screen dimmed and Ene's form sunk to the taskbar as if sleeping, the icon for iTunes as her pillow. The hum slowed and stopped, all processes settling into sleep mode for the remainder of the night.

* * *

><p>The solid desk felt cold against her cheek, which had gone numb and no doubt red. Takane clenched her hands, finding a pencil hanging limply from one of them. She moaned, curling her legs under the chair, instinctively curling up for more comfort.<p>

She budged her head, unsticking her eyelids to pry them open at the giggling. She moaned again in annoyance.

"You're awake _now_," Haruka pointed out, and gently shook her shoulder again. "C'mon, I forgot my umbrella. You remembered yours, right?"

"Yeah," Takane yawned, stretching in her chair as she shook herself fully awake. She rubbed her eyes. "I fell asleep? What did I sleep through this time?"

"Sensei left right before you fell asleep. I didn't want to wake you, so I worked on homework." Takane watched as Haruka already had his bag all ready to leave, a shoulder bag for his laptop and a few papers; as for textbooks, he used the ones in classrooms, having a separate set at home. He knelt to get her worksheet, which had apparently slipped off her desk during her nap.

She stuttered out a meek "thanks" as he put it back up to her, peeking at her from his spot on the floor. "Here ya go. It's pretty easy, actually."

Of course he would say that. He was the smart one, even with their conditions turning their minds into difficult fogs to navigate. She huffed and blushed, shoving it into her bag, not bothering to put it in a proper folder. "Get off the floor, then, if you want to share my umbrella."

He smiled sheepishly. "About that..."

He didn't finish his sentence, and Takane pulled a face. "C'mon. You went to all that trouble to wake me up, and you're not even up to walking?"

"But Takaneeeeeeee," he whined. "Walking is haaaaaaard!"

Still, she didn't offer help. "We have to walk to get to the bus!"

Haruka frowned. After a long moment, Takane tensed, sucking in a breath at sudden realization. She scrambled out of her seat, getting down to the floor to help him up to him feet. "Dumbass, you should've just out and told me! Why'd you even get that paper if you knew this would happen!"

"It's- it's not that bad, Takane," Haruka claimed, his leg muscles barely obeying him. He started to slip down again, taking his classmate with him, and he grappled for the desk, trying to use it to help pull himself up. "I like helping you, that's all."

"Idiot." Takane scowled. They managed to get him collapsed in her seat, Haruka rubbing his legs. "You could have left without me."

"I didn't want you to stay here until Sensai found you," he replied quietly. "I thought it was the rain making you tired."

The rain. A light sprinkle beat on the windows in the repurposed lab room, but the heavy dark clouds promised a heavier downpour. Few students still remained at the school, spinning out umbrellas and taking shelter under trees or their bags in desperation. Some didn't care for getting wet at all, not even bothering to pull over the hood of the sweater they'd donned.

Takane sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. "You're the human barometer. I can't tell with that shit."

Haruka's apologetic smile, however, seemed to melt away all the troubles and make her relax. She huffed, her hands on her hips. "You know I'm not waiting for you," she told him sternly, putting up a front.

"_-ne?"_

"I'm up, I'm up!" Haruka stood up to prove that fact to her, and his expression changed to shock in an instant. His arms went up to balance himself, and he breathed a sigh as he managed to avoid falling. "See?" he chirped, grinning. "Just fine. C'mon, before anyone else steals-"

"_Ene? Are you asleep?"_

"-the elevator and we have to wait longer for it."

Takane rolled her eyes, and hefted her bag again over her shoulder. "Let's go, then," she said, heading out ahead of him, and heard his steps follow soon after. They turned on their normal path to the elevator, and both did a double take at hearing the ping before they even got there.

"Hey!" Takane snapped, running forward as another student slipped through the metal doors. "What do you think you're doing?! That's for disability resources only!"

_"Hey, you little jinx, wake up."_

"Takene, it's not-"

"No! It's not okay!" Her fist banged on the elevator doors, too late to stop them from closing. She clicked the button on the side a couple times to call back the elevator, but the old piece of machinery refused to open. "That asshole just stole the-"

* * *

><p>"-elevator!"<p>

"...you were dreaming about elevators? I didn't know it was possible for you to even sleep," Shintaro muttered, checking the forums for updates on another screen, having left one empty to give her some semblance of peace. "You're always burning up the screen in the early hours of the morning."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes<em>

Huzzah.


	2. Chapter 2

**Requited Love**

"-elevator!"

"...you were dreaming about elevators? I didn't know it was possible for you to even sleep," Shintaro muttered, checking the forums for updates on another screen, having left one empty to give her some semblance of peace. "You're always burning up the screen in the early hours of the morning."

Ene's face flushed red then paled then her eyes went wide, flipping through those emotions in a short span of frames.

"You mean I slept through the morning and you waking up and I missed everything?!" she screeched, waving her arms wildly over the list of messages Shintaro was perusing. "That's not supposed to happen!"

"Guh!" She dramatically swooned back to the bottom of the screen, and her image appeared over his wall, covering the screen in evident distress. "I hate sleep!"

"...hey." Shintaro sipped at his soda, grimacing at how it had gone flat overnight. "I sleep every night, you know."

"But Master is lazy and always sleeps until noon. Technically Master doesn't sleep at night, just morning."

The ignoring started. Oooo, she'd stepped on a nerve there. She rolled around, lounging on the large screen, bouncing one leg. "You know, they're gonna come looking for you. They did say they'd have something for Master to do. They're gonna get annoyed if you don't go meet them."

He pushed his chair away from the desk, getting up and dragging his feet.

"Wow, are you really going to get ready? Master, I'm so prou-"

Shintaro ducked into the bathroom, grabbing a pair of clothes on his way. He wasn't even going to listen to her while he dressed. What a cop-out.

"Your sister knows where you live!" she called to him, cranking up the volume so he'd hear her. "I'll send them your address! They'll come and drag you kicking and screaming to somewhere I won't give you the map of!"

Shintaro poked his head out of the bathroom, toothbrush in hand, to retort, "I have a song to finish writing!" And gone again.

"OOOOOO! Your songs never get a good rep!" she hollered back, a smirk clear across her features. "The only reason they get views at all is because you always advertise them on your precious forums!"

No response. As expected.

"Maybe I should install parental controls on your computer! Get you to cut that porn habit of yours cold turkey, eh?"

"I swear, I'll delete you once and for all one d-"

"SHINTARO! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO TURN DOWN THE VOLUME ON YOUR COMPUTER?"

Shintaro sprinted (more like stumbled) back to his computer, and yanked out the speaker cords as Ene rolled around the screen holding her stomach, laughing. Out of all of their conversations-conveniently-turned-into-threats-and-subsequent-backlashes, Shintaro's mother held the title of champion for most arguments won.

* * *

><p>Seto st himself down at a bench stylized to be an art statement, and pulled out his phone, squinting at the screen to turn up the brightness to see it in the well-lit building. When he managed to comprehend the screen, instead of his apps, there appeared to be a YouTube video pulled up.<p>

He could see the wifi signal in the corner of the screen, but he didn't remember watching anything recently. Maybe Mary had been watching cat videos again. Or Ene wanted him to watch something she'd found, she had jumped on his phone earlier. With that girl, it could have been anything from a cliché vine to a a silly cat in a box. With that in mind, he put in his earbuds, and pressed the triangle in the center. It pulsed, several dots danced in a circle, and a click sounded in his ears.

The scene started on a bus, parked at a bus stop. On schedule, evidently. The last few people filed onto the bus, cramming it to full. A gaggle of girls, their galoshes splashing in the puddles on the pavement, stopped as they arrived at the bus. Closing their umbrellas, they shrieked as the rain pelted them, and scrambled aboard.

Out the windows, it appeared to be a dreary day. A nice neighborhood, all swept clean with brilliant paint jobs, nice buildings, well-taken-care-of hedges and well-placed trees. It was no surprise that all the bus's chivalrous passengers avoided the handicapped seating, the cushioned bench sectioned off by neon yellow markings all over it.

The driver gave a huff as he pulled a lever, the doors closing seconds later. A shout cut through the rain, hitting the camera's microphone. "Stop, wait! Open the doors, we need to get on!"

When the doors opened again, a student stopped, grabbing the rail and stomping a foot on the first step. Her long bangs sticking to her face, she waited to board, panting, leveling a glare at the driver.

"Get on," the driver snapped. "You're holding up the bus, I have other stops to get to." Still, she didn't move, and a few passengers peered around their seats and other obstacles to quirk an annoyed eyebrow at the commotion.

After a long, tense moment, Seto discovered why she made the bus wait. A taller boy slowed from a light speedwalk as he came into the screen, holding an umbrella and looking miserable. "Takane, you didn't have to," he said, his voice soft and hard to pick out from the rain.

She shot him a scowl as if offended, and mumbled something in a huff. The boy, another student, quickly boarded the bus, and Seto sucked in a breath as he sat at the handicapped seat, shoving the umbrella closed. Unknown to the student, the ire of the entire bus turned to focus on him.

The girl, Takane, finally dashed onto the bus, and plopped herself down next to the boy. Seto's eyes widened. This was just asking for trouble.

For a few minutes, Seto watched the tension simmer. The bus started moving, and the two students talked quietly, the microphone only catching snippets of comprehensible dialogue. The boy's name was Haruka, he figured out that much, and it seemed like they were chatting about complaints about classes and little funny points of the day.

It turned into a time bomb for someone to explode. And someone did.

"Hey, kids! Those are for the elderly!"

When one person broke the dam, others invited themselves through, chiming in.

"Yeah, some people actually need those seats!"

"What would your parents think?"

"Just wait until you have arthritis and a couple of spoiled teens are taking those seats!"

Haruka's teeth clenched, and his eyes teared up a bit, his hands clenched tight on the dripping umbrella. He took a breath, and mustered up the courage to start to rise, an apology on his lips.

"I'm sor-"

"Don't bother," Takane said loudly, putting a hand on his arm and pulling him back down. "It's none of their business. We don't have to explain ourselves to them."

The other passengers' seats were a tall step higher than theirs, and they loomed over the teens with scowls and judging glares. The two, suddenly appearing like tiny, petulant children, trembled under the heavy mood.

Seto frowned, confused. Why didn't they just stand and hang onto the poles? Keep a hand on the back of a seat for balance? Even he could see that if they continued to just sit there, the other passengers would turn threatening.

What did they hope to gain? What was there to prove?

Why did Ene think this was important to show him?

Takane turned her head up, looking directly at the camera, and the video ended, leaving him lost as to if the students were attacked further or not. He turned his phone vertical again, watching the video minimize back into the YouTube screen. Seto poked and prodded the screen, but it offered no title or information on who posted it, and when he poked for a description, the screen went black. The screen blinked back to his home screen, and he sighed. The video had crashed the app.

Seto tapped open the app again, but it opened to the YouTube home page instead of the last-played video. Strange, but he didn't think much on it.

His attention was taken by the fluff of white hair as soft as cotton candy emerging from the restrooms. Seto smiled, waving a hand to attract Mary's attention, stowing away the phone in his pocket. He didn't question Ene's disappearance, assuming she had hopped back onto Shintaro's phone through the wireless.

The video would be a mystery for another day.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes<em>

Takane has Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), also called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), the main symptom of which is fatigue. With chronic fatigue, you often find yourself falling asleep in the oddest of places and positions, even when you're engaged in an interesting activity, and even large amounts of sleep are not restorative. Every single day feels like you've pulled an all-nighter. Incurable, not life-threatening. No official treatment. There is next to no funding for research into this disease.

This is my NaNoWriMo project this year.


	3. Memories

Warnings: menstruation mention, ableist characters.

* * *

><p><strong>Requited Love<strong>

Takane frowned at the security camera above the driver's seat, seeing the red light and seeing a familiar face beyond it.

"Seto?" she asked, and her eyes widened. "Wha..."

She looked beside her, where she technically should have been processing visual stimuli and reading it as code, and to Haruka, the visual stimuli that stayed impossibly vivid and real. Those cute spots on the side of his face, his eyes that shimmered with tears in that moment, his quivering lip. He noticed her staring, and squeezed her hand as he turned his attention to her in return.

She expected to find herself in her nest of code, reading electrical signals and sending out code and completed processes to function. Seto was supposed to be read as lines and lines and lines and lines of numbers and symbols, his dark green jumpsuit a corresponding line of numbers. She hadn't had memories so clear and _alive_ since being human.

With the interruption of real-life, she waited for the memory to break and fade into nothing but fragments of code, real life confronting her with the freedom of being part of microchips and electrical signals.

Haruka's voice was quiet, raspy from the tears threatening to escape. "Who's Seto?"

Memories didn't change.

"He- he's a friend, kinda shy, always attached to this one girl," the words poured out in explanation, Takane rambling, almost testing to see if that had been a fluke, if the memory still had time to fall apart at her words. "He wears this green jumpsuit - his brother calls him a big frog."

Haruka seemed to be confused at first-then he smiled. "You don't often talk about your friends outside school," he commented, a hint of amazement to his voice. "He must be nice. Who's the other girl?"

Takane's mind raced. She was floundering, feeling as if the world was cracking underneath her as it rushed to her that this might not be as simple as replaying a memory. "Her name's Mary," she answered, just wanting to talk to Haruka. Haruka, who was actually inches away from her. Haruka, whose arm she still had a hand on. "I always see her wearing a dress, and she has this big poof of white hair. She's even more shy than Seto, and it's like she's the princess and he's her knight in shining armor."

"They sound like an adorable couple," Haruka commented, awed. In that moment, talking to each other, the disgruntled crowd didn't seem so overpowering.

Takane glanced out the window, smiling, glad this was relaxing him from the near-confrontation. From what she remembered, on this day they'd been kicked off at the next stop, the majority of passengers' opinions winning over the fact that the driver saw them almost every day taking those same seats. They'd walked home, crashing at Haruka's place since it was closest.

That entire 'meeting the parents' fiasco had been a disaster. The power went out, and Haruka had suggested she stay for dinner and a sleepover. Mentions about her being famous at a zombie game had turned dinner conversation sour, Haruka's mother being squeamish and very disapproving of horror games. Her body had decided to remind her of her female biology that night, and she'd bled on the guest bedroom mattress. That morning had been awkward and even the men of the house knew the situation before she learned Haruka's mother had a hysterectomy and hadn't had a period in early two decades. She almost blushed bright red as she realized she'd have to endure that horrible embarrassment all again.

Not this time. No, that wouldn't happen this time, she promised. She'd stand her ground, and they'd be dropped off at their usual spot.

"They're a bit younger than us," she kept talking, her plan cementing in her mind. "Mary is really old-fashioned, and sews a lot of her own clothes."

"I think," he noted, his eyes focused on her. Only her. "If I could sew, I'd make you something beautiful to wear."

Her face must have been beet red in that moment. "That's- that's stupid!" She huffed, and although romantic of him, her mind insisted it impractical. She would spend the entire time worried about messing it up, and likely be impossible to sleep comfortably in with all her napping. "I'd never wear a dress like that! Wait-are you saying I need to dress in girly shit?"

Haruka muffled a chuckle, a hand pressing against his chest. "Okay, so what if I made you a scarf or sweater?"

"I think that's crochet and knitting, dumbass."

Haruka opened his mouth to reply, but both were jarred by the bus slowing to a stop, and the doors swung open at an unassuming corner of the street. Takane felt her heart leap to her throat. This was it. The driver was about to turn around to them, a tired look on his face, and say-

"Sorry, kids, but you're going to have to get off here."

"What?" Haruka gasped, the smile vanishing.

"But why?" the words slipped from Takane's mouth, reciting the memory. "We always sit here."

"The other passengers don't appreciate your behavior, taking the handicapped seating."

In hindsight she now had, she knew he was just trying to get them to safety, away from the murderous intent of the other passengers, most who were older and more able than them. But this time, she wouldn't stand for it. Haruka had caught a cold out in that rain, and she'd embarrassed herself in front of his family all because she'd given in last time.

"We're not leaving."

Memories didn't change.

So she created new ones.

"Takane-"

She didn't ignore the stressed tone to his voice. It gave her more reason to persist. "No," she snapped. "We're not giving up these seats. We need these seats, and anyone who thinks otherwise can shove a cactus dildo up their ass."

The rest of the bus was quiet, conversation stalled in favor of staring down the teens. A girl, maybe a year or two younger than them from seeing her in the hallways, flinched at the obscene language. An older business man, kind of scruffy, spoke sternly to them.

"You need it?" he scoffed. "You're too young to be sick with those kinds of diseases. My mother spent months in a wheelchair before losing the battle to cancer. You should be ashamed of yourselves."

The 'I know a guy' card. Takane grit her teeth. How could people bring in their relatives like weapons to beat people down and think that was okay?

"We're fucking disabled, bastard." She felt on the verge of screaming or crying, she didn't know which. She turned in her seat to glare at him, refusing to give in to his taunts and stand. "My damn knees are killing me enough without standing on a moving bus-" Fudging the truth, but her real reason didn't have the same bang to it. She avoided saying anything directly about any of their conditions, stubbornly keeping that private. "-and my friend will dislocate his hip again if you make him walk all the way home!"

The man had the nerve to claim, "I don't believe you. You're too young to know pain."

Takane bristled, seeing red, and shouted, "Yeah? Where's your doctor's degree, huh? Where'd you go to medical school? I'd like to see you tell that to our doctors, you shitlord!"

A sweaty palm grabbed her arm.

"Takane, stop."

Takane blinked through her anger, glancing back at Haruka. She watched as he stood up, and numbly followed him off the bus, no words exchanged between them. She saw the wince as he stepped onto the pavement. She glanced back to the bus as he opened the umbrella, and almost flinched at the hatred emanating from the glares through the windows. "Haruka..." she started, but didn't know what to say.

Memories didn't change.

"You went too far, Takane."

This time, she did flinch. She folded her hands behind her, clenching her bag and turning her gaze to the ground. The umbrella was moved to shelter her, Haruka stepping beside her. She didn't want to see his disapproving frown.

"While I appreciate that you tried to keep us from getting kicked off the bus, I don't like other people talking about my illness like that."

Shit.

She stepped over that rule of chronic illness: Don't out another sickie.

"Aren't you tired of it?" she demanded, feeling herself shake from the sheer anger bubbling inside her. "_You don't look sick, you're too young!_ It drives me up the fucking wall hearing it all the damn time!"

Haruka shook his head, refusing to press the discussion. "That could have been dangerous," he continued, his tone steady. "Neither of us could take any kind of physical confrontation. If that had escalated any more, we'd have ended up in a flare. C'mon."

Takane had no protest to them moving away from the edge of road to against a tree. It didn't provide much shelter, and the bark was soggy, but it was something to lean on, and both of them needed that. She said nothing for a while, and neither did he.

Looking out from their little haven, warmth between their bodies, the dull patter against the plastic, water droplets streaking down their faces. The rain didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon, the sky an unending sea of deep grey. She mumbled an apology, barely hearing herself over the rhythmic beat of nature's tears.

"It's okay." She should have expected that. He always did forgive too easily. "I was the one who wanted to catch this bus instead of waiting another half hour, anyway. Just...don't talk over me like that."

Takane nodded. "They were a bunch of ableist bastards, anyway."

She heard a content sigh from him, but her eyes had stuck on the road, at the passing cars. Dry and toasty fuckers, going home after a long day. Too bad they only ran the taxis through the big cities... That was it! "Wait here," she ordered.

Without giving him a chance to question her, she stomped over with a purpose to the edge of the sidewalk, and stuck her thumb out. She almost grinned at her genius idea - no embarrassing sleepover tonight! - but the image of how stupid she must have looked stopped her.

"T-Takane?" Haruka blinked at her. "Did I say something wrong? Are you going to leave me alone out here?"

Takane scowled. "No, you idiot! Of course I'm not abandoning you. I'm getting us a ride."

"...we're going to hitchhike? It's not that far from my house, really."

Far enough for him to catch a cold and start complaining after five minutes. "No." She stood firm. "We're getting a ride. I don't care if I have to stand out here for an hour, I'm not putting up with this rain."

"Wow, Takane's amazing!" She grimaced, knowing he had some sort of shiny fanboy expression on his face. "So kind! But, you know we could always call someone to come pick us up."

What.

"What?!" Her words echoed her thoughts, and she sprinted back over to him. "You mean you had your phone on you this whole time?"

Haruka hadn't suggested this last time. There was still a chance!

"...I thought you had your phone. Mine broke last week, remember?"

She deflated. There went her hopes for redemption.

"Right..." She mumbled. "I don't have mine either. I left it at home." That's right; from this experience, she'd learned a valuable lesson in always having her phone on her.

"We could find a payphone." Hallelujah!

"...where the hell are we supposed to find a payphone?"

And that brought no solution to their predicament.

Takane returned to her post, resolutely ignoring how ridiculous it was, although watching every car pass them by with hardly a glance...was disheartening, to say the least. Humiliating at worst.

When a smallish white car slowed beside them, she almost couldn't believe it. Her thumb lowered and Haruka looked up. The window on the passenger side rolled down, and Momo Kisaragi's smiling face greeted them. "Do you need a ride? Hop in!"

"M-Momo?" Takane choked, her master's baby sister being the last person she expected to see in this dream. She wasted no time jumping in the backseat, scooting over so Haruka could get in beside her. They had some trouble with the umbrella, and Takane got her face splattered with more water, not that it made much difference after standing without it with her thumb out like a hobo.

"Idol Momo Kisaragi, at your service!" Momo turned around in her seat to flash them a smile and peace sign, and Takane barely blinked at her eyes switching to red. Her power enraptured Haruka, anyway.

"An idol...Takane! This is the best day of our lives, meeting a celebrity! Can we get an autograph?"

"No!" Takane burst in, getting frowns and stares turned her way. "I- I mean, we just want to get home, we don't want to waste Momo's- I mean Kisaragi-san's time."

It took a moment, then Haruka smiled at her, and addressed Momo, "She's right, I'm sorry. There was a mishap with the bus, and we need a ride home. Thanks so much for this."

"No problem," Momo said, relieved they gave up the hunt for an autograph. "Don't tell anyone, but I'm not a fan of giving autographs. It's so much work to get it just right."

Half an hour, more like. Her fried mind started making more connections-really, she'd be in hysterics about this if she wasn't too tired for that. It was only logical that they'd meet up with Momo like this. Momo was someone she knew. her mind wasn't likely to insert a total stranger into her dreams, or someone she knew to be busy or elsewhere.

"So, where are you headed? My chauffeur will take us wherever you need to go."

Takane readily gave up her address, a place she checked up on periodically to monitor her grandmother, who continued to live after her granddaughter had died that hot day. When she heard nothing from Haruka, she turned to him, and groaned at his expression.

"...you forgot your address, didn't you?"

His sheepish smile was enough of an answer for her. She waved off Momo's awkward grimace with, "He's scatterbrained. We'll just go to my house." With a grin, she suggested to Haruka, "Maybe we could even have a sleepover. The guest room is a bit dusty, but I think you'll like my grandmother's cooking."

Haruka's face lit up at the suggestion of food, but he hesitated. "I'd better call my parents once I get to your place. And," his voice quieted, and she leaned closer to hear him, "-if it's okay, do you think I could borrow some supplements? I'm on a strict regime."

Takane nodded. Ach. She'd forgotten that one part. By dragging him to her house instead, she was dragging him away from all his tablets and pills. They'd both been through hundreds of treatments, so she just had to remember where she kept those old bottles. They could figure something out. It wasn't like he'd die from missing a dose or two, but she worried anyway.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes<em>

I have 45 pages of this waiting to be revised and edited. This is the end of page 9. I'm so glad I finally got this chapter sorted out! I was convinced I was missing a scene, and that this one wasn't finished.


	4. Silver Lining

Warnings: menstruation mention, pills, capslock shouting, grief, people eat food.

* * *

><p><strong>Requited Love<strong>

Shintaro growled at his phone. In desperation, he shook it. "Ene! Stop messing around."

He continued trying to navigate his labyrinth of a phone, trying to bring up a GPS or at least a map off the internet. Instead, all he kept stumbling on were pages and pages of medications, vitamins, and sham snake oil tablets. Random pill reminder apps alerted him of their download without his consent.

"Ene. Ene. Ene." Shintero sighed, and watched one of the new apps crash his phone. He waited as it restarted, peeking out from under the desk he was huddled under. No one familiar. Safe for the time being.

Initiation. The word now hopelessly confused and annoyed him.

He was used to initiation being part of MMORPGs, the noob being the one to scout ahead in dungeons, the pack mule, the one who had their OC's story ripped to shreds with criticism. It was the embarrassing part of joining a forum before spending an inordinate amount of time lurking, full of welcome posts and accidentally having your account suspended by posting the wrong thing. In some cases, it was part of introducing someone to anime. The Big Three of anime were introduced to the person first, then start marathoning everything else. Preferably the classics.

But this. Was not. The internet.

He was pretty sure he'd lost them, but Kido could easily be hiding just a few feet away in this office furniture store. So he hid, his legs and back starting to cramp up from his hunched position, trying vainly to contact Ene. He double-checked his connection, but nope, no problems there.

For now, he was using his chemistry knowledge to understand these various articles that kept popping up. And, well, he couldn't reach TV Tropes with what appeared to be a bug, but he could definitely look up these medications and click through the various links on Wikipedia. The advanced chemistry classes he used to take certainly made understanding this a whole lot easier.

* * *

><p>"OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!"<p>

The rest of Takane's protests were lost in splutters and shrieks, barely having time to cover her chest with a towel before she was unceremoniously shoved out of the bathroom and back into the dark. Sure, she'd heard him knocking on the door, and she'd yelled at him to wait a few minutes. She'd prepared for nature's goblin first, so she at least had pajama pants on when he barged in.

Takane stumbled out of the bathroom, door shutting behind her with a frantic slam, her face burning as much as in the narrowly-avoided previous scenario. Her body shivered, no longer in the warm steam from her shower, but her insides were paradoxically having a hot flash from the embarrassment.

Steadily, she regained her nerves, and properly wrapped her towel around her, making her way to her bedroom, the storm outside giving occasional flashes of light, her expression the same as anyone seeing a zombie for the first time. Not that anyone would see it; she'd left the lantern back in the bathroom.

She closed the bedroom door, and grappled for her flashlight, turning it on as she sat on her bed with a forced sigh. Her heart still raced. Her hair dripped a mix of water and conditioner down her back, her arms too tired to rinse it out completely. Any longer in the shower and she might have fainted. As it was, that unexpected surprise had done a number on her.

Memories didn't change - she'd been telling herself that since the bus incident. Dreams didn't feel this real - you woke up when you felt pain, right?

What did it mean when this reality changed and felt real?

She'd stood up to the rude bus passengers. They'd met Momo. They'd gone to her house instead of Haruka's. Her illness had returned - and with it, all the head-pounding exhaustion, heavy fatigue, and dull aching in her muscles that never went away.

Takane fell back on her bed, and felt her wet hair start to soak into the sheets. Her eyes burned, and a strained sob escaped her throat.

For the next several minutes, she mourned.

It was as if someone died. In this sense, only someone in her situation could understand. In this moment, she mourned health.

Energy. Strength. Youth. Happiness. By all means, she should have had these things. Haruka should have had these things. Yet she was going through the loss of the barest aspects of living, again, and she managed to put Haruka through that suffering at the same time by reliving all this.

She wanted to be Ene. Ene didn't have to go through what Takane did.

_Knock, knock._ "Takane?"

She held her breath.

Another knock. "Are you still awake? I'm sorry about just now, but you _were_ out of the shower... Do you think you could get out the supplements?"

Ene didn't have Haruka.

Takane was at the door in a flash, throwing her arms around Haruka, holding back tears. He stiffened, then relaxed, wrapping shaky arms around her. She absently took note that the shaking was much more noticeable than it should have been.

"...before we get the pills, could you put a shirt on?"

Takane detached from him, slamming the door again, mortified. She scrambled to throw on a shirt, her muscles trying to give up on her and making it an almost impossible ambition. She returned to the door, and leaned against the door frame for a bit of a rest.

"Supplements," she echoed, almost missing the blush on his face. He nodded mutely.

He let her past him, and followed like a lost puppy as she made her way around the apartment, watching her use the walls for support. Both were dead tired. Both wanted sleep. As she pulled out a box and set it on the table, he went to get the glasses of water.

Among all the rattling, one of them made a joke about this being dessert. It didn't matter who.

* * *

><p>"I vote for defenestration."<p>

Kido raised an eyebrow at Kano's casual brainstorming. "We are not," she stressed, "I repeat, _not_ going to throw him out a window."

Seto placed the tray on the table, joining the group. "There's a word for throwing someone out the window?"

"I've never read it used for only one person," Mary noted, curious despite the apparent morbid origin of the idea. "Historically, defenestration has been used as a term for 'death from being thrown out a window', and was a large part of the defense of Prague during the Thirty Years War."

Momo sighed, taking her pink bubble tea. "I don't think I want to kill my own brother, even if he is a perv. Maybe we could pretend to throw him out the window? Like, there have to be window displays somewhere. Throw him through that and have him land on a mattress from one of the furniture stores."

Kido shook her head. "I don't want to use my power to drag around furniture. That's too big, and there are too many people here. We'd get caught before we could execute the plan."

"What if we gave him a different name?" Kano stabbed his noodles with a spork. "I mean, the names we use are mostly made up, so why not? Shintaro is pretty long."

"What about my name?" Momo asked. "No one gave me a code name."

"Momo is short enough," Kano pointed out, pointing his utensil at her.

Kido broke apart her chopsticks and shot him a glare. "If we called him Kisaragi, we'd get him mixed up with Momo. Same if we shortened it to Kisa."

"Why not call him Kisa?" Seto set his plate between Mary and himself, handing her a pair of chopsticks. "It means tiger, but it's also a girl's name. Wasn't the point of this to embarrass him?" He checked his phone again, tapping a few apps to check if Ene had hopped back to join them.

At that, Kano pointed out, "We should have taken his phone. Ene might help him."

"No, that wouldn't ever happen." Momo shook her head, and took her bag of shrimp fries to munch on. "If anything, she'd taunt him or make it worse for him."

"She showed me a video earlier," Seto said with a frown, garnering all eyes on him. "Of a few kids in some trouble. It looked like she'd taken it from a bus camera, from a week or two ago, when we had all that rain."

The rest of the table took out their phones and an ipod, and one buzzed as it turned on.

"She's not on my phone."

"Not here."

"Nada."

"She's not here, either," Mary noted.

They looked around the table, everyone watching each others' confused expressions. "I'm calling him," Kido decided, already tapping in the numbers. In seconds they had a response, and Kido put it on speakerphone.

"_How do you plan on hiding my body,_" Shintaro demanded, his voice defeated.

Kido, for a moment, acted confused and nonchalant. "Huh? Oh, yeah, we're still preparing everything. I can carry out a body bag without anyone giving a second glance."

They heard the squeak of terror at that answer.

"We just need Ene for something, so can you send her over? She can travel through the wifi, right?"

A pause.

"_...you guys don't have her? I thought she hopped on Seto's phone."_

Kido glanced at Seto. "No, she's not over here."

"_That's...weird. Maybe she's back on my home computer, or she accidentally jumped on someone else's phone. She usually comes back as soon as I connect to the internet."_ In a sly, positive tone, he added, _"If you'll excuse me, I have some things I need to __do__."_

Momo covered her face with a groan as the call ended. "I did _not _need to hear that." Seto and Mary, poor innocent children, looked around confused as Kido blushed and Kano snickered.

"Agreed." Kido sighed, setting her phone on the table next to her rice.

"So, Esteemed Leader," Kano started, chewing on a piece of chicken he'd snatched off Kido's plate, "Are we going through with the initiation? Or put that on hold while we search for our wayward member?"

Kido sighed, apparently not noticing the missing morsel of food. "How would we do that? She lives on the internet. We can only wait for her to come back."

Kano gave a shrug of indifference. "Indeed. Looks like we have to go stop Shin-Shin from corrupting his poor mind."

Momo spluttered at the nickname, and quickly grabbed a napkin to wipe her face. "Shin-Shin? Death-Death? What kind of name is that?"

"A weeaboo name for a weeaboo guy."

Mary spoke up, "What about a llama?" Wide eyes turned to her, making her shrink.

"What _about_ a llama?"

"It could eat Shin-Shin's perverted thoughts!" Kano declared, suddenly standing on his chair, spork high in the air.

Kido dragged him down. "...no. Lunch first, then we go running around."

"You're no fun, sis."

"That's right, I'm the party-pooper."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes<em>

After Haruka said, _"...before we get the pills, could you put a shirt on?"_, I honestly had: _Way to ruin the mood, Haruka_. So there's that to think about.

Anyone else open a bottle of pills and white powder exploded all over your black yoga pants and then you look like a cocaine dealer? No? Just me? Okay.


	5. Attack on Spork

In this chapter: continuation of prank arc. Mention of Shintaro's porn habit.

**Requited Love**

"So what's the sand for, again?"

Momo's question brought the Dan's attention to the three bags of sand they were hauling in a red wheelbarrow through the mall. Not anyone else's attention, of course; Kido had hidden their 'supplies' for them, too anxious about getting unwanted attention from the other mall-goers to let them wander without her power.

"For Shintaro, of course," Kano answered as if it was obvious, waving his trusty spork.

Seeing as no other answer was forthcoming, Momo probed more, "..and what is Shintaro going to do with three bags of sand?"

"Sink."

"Sink," Momo repeated slowly. She crossed her arms and gave him another skeptical glare, one he pretended not to notice. "And how is he going to sink?"

"Physics. Gravity."

"That's not vague at all," she groaned.

Kido looked to Seto and Mary for help, but they were utterly content to follow blindly. "Kano," she started. "Does this have anything to do with the initiation?"

"Yes."

More literal answers.

"...What are we going to do with the sand?"

"You'll see."

She shot him a glare. "I should amend that question: What are YOU going to do with the sand?"

A moment of silence; Kano seemed unaffected, but they knew him to be thinking. Momo, unused to him always having up an illusion, fumed quietly at his flamboyant ignorance.

"...we're going to fill a tub of some sort with sand," Kano finally surrendered the plan. "He'll step in it, thinking it's just normal flooring, and he'll sink like quicksand!"

"...so where are we going?"

This time, he gave a more complete answer, "To Shintaro! We'll put it right in his path, and he'll never see it coming!"

"What makes you think I'll help you with your prank?" Kido snapped, assuming they'd need her powers to keep the plot hidden.

Kano smirked. "Dear sister, you know you want to see that smug face kiss the floor."

Kido rolled her eyes, looking away, but couldn't argue. Under her breath, she muttered, "I'd like to see your smug face kiss the floor alright."

Kano burst out laughing.

* * *

><p>"I'm alive."<p>

Secluded in a bathroom stall, Shintaro scowled at Ene's voice come through his earbuds instead of the giggly bouncy sound effects from the anime episode he had pulled up on his phone. Time for his fun to end.

He exited the bathroom, back into the crowds he so despised. Putting his earbuds back in, he at first thought he was overhearing mall noises, but turning up the volume even after closing the video to check that it wasn't static, it persisted. Heavy breathing. Slow, deep breaths of sleep. Had Ene recorded him sleeping? Who was he kidding, of course she did. The only part that tipped him away from that tangent was that it sounded like a girl breathing. He couldn't pin down the exact linguistic peculiarities that led to that conclusion; he figured it had to do with pitch.

"Ene?"

He sighed. She was going to ignore him? Really? "Ene, could you bring up a map of this place? Oh, and the Meka-whatevers want to talk to you about something."

Ene's face finally popped up on his screen. She looked...distant. Contemplative. It was a rare emotion to see from her.

"...thanks. Hey, do you think I could stay on here, Master?"

Her tone threw Shintaro for a loop. Small, lacking her usual cheer. He felt almost concerned for her.

"Sure," he said, acting as if he didn't care either way. "I'll tell them you're still not back yet."

"Not back yet?" She floated in the middle of his screen, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, a frown on her face. "Where did I go?"

"I figured you went back to my house. You disappeared from everyone's electronics."

He walked leisurely around the mall, on the lookout for any of the Dan. He heard nothing from Ene for a few shops, and glanced back at the screen, tapping the button on top to light it up. She had miniaturized herself, taking on a yoga pose in the bottom corner with her eyes closed. He let her be, looking up again-

God damn it. Still no map. He just couldn't get a break, could he?

* * *

><p>They had the sand. Kano insisted on an 'army of sporks', whatever that was, so they also had a box of plastic white fork-spoon hybrids. An inflatable raft was also procured. According to Kano, They had everything needed.<p>

So, further following Kano's directions, they set up their raft in a shop of novelties-bracelet charms, gift cards, charming hats, decorative cushions, pastel fairy wallpaper. They grabbed a frilly cushion. It had barely barely any customers, having slow business compared to other shops, so it was the perfect spot. No possibility of anyone bumping into Kido, and even smaller possibility of any wayward customer falling into their trap before Shintaro did. It was a masterpiece.

They filled the raft with sand, coughing as the sand brought dust up in the air no matter how slowly and gingerly they poured it out of the bags. Kano opened the box of sporks, saying they'd be the final piece, placed after Shintaro fell. Mary was quickly distracted by the novelties, and dragged Seto over to the stand of charms, oohing and awwing at the tiny works of art with shining eyes.

They set the raft to squeeze in the store between displays, and Kano set himself close enough to the scene so he could ambush Shintaro. Momo edged them all along, and Kido, although was already cringing from the secondhand embarrassment that was no doubt to come from this prank, followed Kano's directions, cramming herself in a nook of another display of hats to avoid any human contact.

Then came the waiting. Momo set the final objective in place, texting away on her phone. An old flip phone, faster to type kanji on than the flat screens of the iPhones the rest of the Mekakushi Dan preferred.

"Alright. He's on his way," Momo said. "I couldn't get a hold of Ene, but Shintaro will be looking out for Mary and Seto." She indicated the two lovebirds currently busy with pointing out eveyrthing fitting the description of tiny and cute. "He'll head for them. Keep them visible."

Kido nodded, focusing her powers as directed. "Now to wait and see if Kano's prank is as good as he tells us."

They didn't have to wait long, seeing the NEET come slogging himself into the florid shop, slumped and one earbud hanging down his jacket. "Just you two? Where're the others?" he asked, looking annoyed at having come all this way for nothing. "Seriously, Momo better not be joking," he said, moving in, not sparing any of the superfluous trinkets his attention. "Can't think of a prank? Between all of you..."

He didn't even finish that. He made a _tch_ sound, before his sluggish gait caught his foot on the end of the raft. He went down with a yelp, and went face-first in the pillow Kano had so kindly placed in just the right spot.

Momo gasped, and coughed, sand going up and catching in her throat. Kido had the forethought to raise up the collar of her sweatshirt a bit more, and her eyes darted to the lovebirds - Mary had paused in her admiring to giggle at the epic fail of Shintaro. To add insult to insult, Kano twirled out into the open, flourishing the box to let it rain sporks. Vaguely, they heard the clerk of the store gasp as the scene unfolded in the middle of her store. In seconds, Seto was blocking her view, assuring her they'd get it all cleaned up and that it would be like they hadn't even been there.

"I hate all of you," Shintaro groaned from his spot in the sand. He pushed himself up, sand trickling out of his hair from where it had already settled in. He spat out sand, sitting up. "God, did you have to use sand?"

"Yup," Kano promptly answered him, even though the question came as rhetorical. He received a glare for that, and he smirked all the wider.

"And - what are these? - forks?" Shintaro grabbed at a utensil, giving it a menacing glare.

"Sporks," Momo chipped in. "Part spoon, part fork - a spork!"

Shintaro threw up his hands, spraying more sand around, and sporks fell off him. "You're all five years old!"

"Between the ages of 15 and 17," Kano corrected. "Kido's one year younger than you. Mary doesn't count in this."

Shintaro groaned. "I'm surrounded by idiots."

"That may be true," Kido considered, her voice calm, although holding back evident amusement. "But you'll be civil if you don't want me to leave you in a box of sand and plastic for all to see all alone."

"You're pulling my leg."

"No, that's Momo," Kido corrected, stifling more laughter. Momo had taken that chance to tug at her brother's leg, setting up the perfect cringe-worthy joke.

Shintaro huffed, sand blowing out his nose. Ew. "Why don't I believe that you'd leave me here? You're too much of a bleeding heart."

"Do you really want to play that game, Shin-Shin?" Kano smirked at him. "What makes you think we'd help an arrogant sod like you? Sister will leave you here, won't she?"

Kido frowned at the pressuring, but a glance around showed her that she was on her own here. "This prank wasn't my idea," she claimed, backing out of responsibility. "I'm not in charge for this mission."

"...you suck."

"Don't insult the hand that feeds, big brother."

"You all suck," Shintaro grumbled, standing up, wobbling with imbalance on the mounds of sand, grains falling off him. Leveling a tired glare at Kano, he stated dryly, not hiding his sarcasm in the least, "Thank you for helping me up."

Kano gave him a thumbs-up. "No problem!" he chirped.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes<em>

Alright, I start missing scenes after this. Those scenes need to be written, and a plot hole fixed. Like ugh, it's right in the summary, and I forgot all about it. In any case, we're getting closer and closer to the climax. My printed copy has five pages left to the big scene-that-somehow-got-really-long-and-turned-into-horror. Proper warnings will be provided. Shorter chapter than I would've liked, but it was essential to wrap up this arc properly.

End Meka-Dan prank arc.


	6. A Day in the Life

Content warnings: Takane's swearing, minor injuries, amnesia

**Requited Love**

Takane sat at her desk, tapping on her phone with absentminded concentration. Her legs swung back and forth, ghosting over the linoleum, her bag rested against the side of her chair.

"This is so boring," she muttered, her words garbling into a yawn as she stretched, her spine cracking. She tensed and squeaked, "Yeep!" in surprise as her shoulders made a snap, and gave out, her arms flopping beside her limply.

One word escaped her to sum up this situation, dead monotone embodying her feelings: "Ow."

What a lackluster reaction.

She'd seen Shintaro worry over a stubbed toe, convinced he'd scraped plexiglass splinters into it. Hell, she laughed at his worry. Even a paper cut had him complaining for hours.

Her shoulders gave out. And here she was, rolling her eyes and moaning about how she couldn't scratch her nose. She was positive that Shintaro would have been pleading for help in her position, with either a quick visit to a chiropractor or downing some painkillers to take care of that electricity coursing through her arms.

Speaking of, she'd noticed him just under an hour ago, for the first time since realizing these dreams could change. He recognized her, giving her a nod in greeting as Ayano said good morning. He recognized her, but not as Ene. They'd met at the school festival, and Ayano dragged them all together as a small circle of friends. That was it. No porn folder naming arguments, no teasing about anime - in fact, as far as Shintaro knew, neither of them knew the other enjoyed anime.

A boy band confessed their love in her ears, blasting bubbly tunes in a song too old for her changed tastes. She'd stuck it on repeat for white noise, but it now was the only thing catching her focus. Fuck.

Kenjirou hadn't shown up yet today. Odd, she was sure after that embarrassing memory, she still came to school and endured a heated face all through classes. Sensei had innocently teased them both, even Haruka with his sniffly nose, when he wasn't doing teacher things like teaching.

Now Haruka was missing this time.

Except Haruka's absence, she could easily explain away. Her grandmother's food hadn't exactly topped his list of safe foods, and the reaction plus the weather sent him in a flare, no matter how much they both tried to avoid that.

Takane clenched her hand. Then the other, inwardly grumbling about the little shocks it sent up her fingers and white-hot tickling numbness. It took seconds for her to get them tapping on her phone again, typing out code on a cheap word document app.

Coding, she knew. Coding had become her every second of every day once she became a computer program, and while the binary and java had been a mystery to her at first, she now read it as easily as she could read a trashy romance book.

Coding had the allure of normalcy, as she somehow felt her life in these memories lacking. For lack of anything else to do, she was writing an app. A game that wouldn't come out until later, but the thought of getting to play it with a physical body was too appealing to resist.

She stretched again, giving her arms and eyes a break. Thankfully, there were no limbs giving out, and she rubbed her sore neck from being bent over a desk for so long.

How boring. She stubbornly refused to sleep, as she was managing to stay awake without much issue for a change. Actually awake and alert, and no one here to congratulate her. She could just sit there until the bell rang and she went to an actual class populated by actual students with an actual teacher, but the wait dragged on.

What about a change?

She already lived through this day once, where was the harm in switching it up?

With a grin, Takane stopped that obnoxious song. She collected her bookbag, and walked out of the classroom. Her dragging footsteps on the linoleum echoed in the hallways. She counted the door numbers, trying to figure out the exact number Shintaro had been in during this one year during this day of the week.

Her steps came to an abrupt halt, and she double-checked the room, peeking in the little window of the door. Looked like math from what she could see on the board. Trigonometry? It all looked like numbers to her. Shintaro appeared to be the least physically matured of the class; what a stuck up genius.

Takane took a deep breath, turned the knob, and stepped inside. She wasted no time in looking confused, choosing to walk as if she was supposed to be in this class, coming to sit beside Shintaro. She took out a notebook and pencil, and, ignoring the few stares, started to copy down the equations on the board. The teacher didn't give her a second glance. Shintaro did.

"Aren't you in the special ed class or something?" he hissed to her, sounding like he could care less. But she knew how to read him. The stuck-up genius was curious.

"Disability accommodations," she corrected. "Tateyama-sensei didn't show up, so I thought I'd actually earn something."

He accepted that answer, and let her be, focusing on the lecture again.

It became very obvious very quickly that Takane had no idea what they were doing. She understood the equations, having seen them in her own coding and solved it quickly without issue, but the steps the teacher took were convoluted and radical to her. She took to looking over Shintaros shoulder at his notes, comparing the teachers notes and her own notes to his.

It was almost like a class on engineering, Takane slowly realized. She crunched the numbers as they were given to her, but she never really understood them besides coming out with the solution. From her appearance on the internet up until now, she read the world by numbers and equations. Her whole image of a blue cyber girl relied on mathematical concepts to accurately display her to her master.

Shintaro had his phone under his desk, tapping away on websites and forums and fanfiction that was no doubt either action or smut, already bored with class. The tapping and scrolling stopped for a long minute, watching Takane out of the corner of his eye as her scribbling pumped out beside him. To him, not much would be legible - numbers, symbols, and adding in even more equations to solving equations. He never did figure out her coding, after all.

Takane felt as if this was solving her life's questions. Philosophy. Here, she was learning about the cells of her being, the very building blocks of the coding that let her twirl around, let her hop from one app to the other.

It was amazing that she didn't fall asleep through all that, the teacher's words going over numbers and variables. For once, she now had words to place to concepts she had been using constantly for the past two years.

"The fuuuuuuuuuck!" she groaned, stumbling out of that classroom after the bell rang for break, her butt numb. "That was so much in one class!"

"You did walk in halfway through a high-level class you've never attended before," Shintaro pointed out, smirking at her. "Wait until you've passed pre-calc to sit in on one of my classes."

With a surge of spite, she whirled on him. "You're on, Kisaragi," she growled. "How are you about a little competition?"

"No."

Takane growled. "Well, why the fuck not?!"

"I'm not interested. You wouldn't be any kind of challenge."

"Fine! Whether you like it or not, you're competing."

"Oh no, whatever shall I do," he deadpanned to her frustration. In a mocking effort to appear interested, he asked, "And how are you going to do that."

"I'm going to take your next math test."

"...so you're going to try to fail me?"

"No!" She felt herself sway as she shook her head. She smirked at him. "I'm going to sit in the same class as you, take the same test at the same time, and I'll do better than you."

"You don't even take the class."

Shintaro was amazingly lacking in the 'giving a damn' compartment. No wonder he turned into a NEET.

"Tateyama-sensei will work something out."

She was confident she could get that lazy teacher to pull some strings for her. It couldn't possibly be that hard to get a math teacher to grade an extra paper.

* * *

><p>Whatever Shinyaro expected, his thoughts were derailed by Ene's voice in his ears.<p>

"Master."

Her tone, inquisitive, caught him off guard after all her silence. He raised an eyebrow at her, not willing to make a fool out of himself in public by speaking aloud. None of it prepared him for the words to come out of her mouth next.

"What's a parabola?"

The shift in expressions on his face must have made any passer-by do a double take. "Ha, you don't know what a parabola is?" he laughed, taking no mind and hoping anyone looking would think he was on a phone call or Face Timing someone. "What brought this on?"

"I..."

He glanced at the screen, finding her trying to hide in her oversized sweater. "I don't know," she admitted. Still, she puffed up her cheeks and insisted, "But I feel it's important to know."

Shintaro tried not to laugh too hard. A difficult task indeed. More than a few children pointed.

Once he'd recovered, Ene's face suitably red, he said, "A parabola is a type of graph. It curves like a hill. If you end up with two of them on a graph, that's a hyperbola. It's algebra."

An annoyed look crossed her face. "That's it? How is that _ever_ important?"

Shintaro shrugged. "Physics and engineering. End up with a collapsed bridge if you don't do the math right."

"I don't need engineering! Engineering means nothing in cyber land!" Ene declared, proving it by floating upside down.

* * *

><p>Sitting in her old classes felt like a thick slab of nostalgia, Takane decided, drawing circles in the corners of her notes. Maybe like listening to an old podcast again after a while. It still had a nagging touch of 'new' to it all, likely from her brain fog. And sleeping during class. Sleeping tended to make the lecture fly by. The brain fog just threw out all the words the teacher tried to stuff in her head. So that was something. It also gave her scary psychic powers at predicting the answers to the questions the teacher spouted off.<p>

Takane propped up her chin on her hand with a huff. This was boring, she wasn't learning anything, what was the point? According to their accommodations, due to their hectic scheduling and something about not enough teachers for private tutoring sessions yadda yadda, instead of the teachers coming to their classroom, the two students popped into certain classes at certain times. She finally had time with her own autonomy, that she could have been spending being with Haruka, and she was wasting it sitting in a classroom.

With that in mind, she pulled out another notebook, opening it to the page she'd covered in math notes. This, she'd spend time making sense of. She tried to drown out the extra words in the APL flying through her mind, but evidently, her teacher had other plans.

"Enomoto, what's your take?"

Takane looked up, glancing at the board to get a sense of where they were. "Is this about that guy who stopped for a sandwich and the Archduke just happened to turn in the same direction and then he managed to kill him after all his groupies failed?"

The teacher seemed to have the pride blown out of him, reduced to a flustered, "...yes, but I was referring to why this started a continental incident."

"Oh." Takane sighed, wishing he'd just leave her alone to ignore his class for studying a completely different subject. "There were all sorts of alliances that had been building up and all the countries just pulled out all the stops and the allies had to fight with their allies, and the enemies had allies, and basically it was a bunch of politicians fucking up."

Her classmates seemed to have some issue with her use of a curse word, and she sunk in her seat, hunching up her shoulders. While it had become acceptable around Haruka and Tateyama, and she'd lost any need to deal with frustration with curse words as a computer program, she'd forgotten how socially unacceptable it was outside of her small world. Still, the teacher didn't bring attention to it, and she was thankful for that.

"...yes, yes, that's right. It got to a point where Turkey, the Ottoman Empire at the time, almost declared war on itself..."

Takane turned her red face back to her math notes, finding comfort as her eyes landed on the familiar odd symbols. With a blink, she found her head tilted to the side. Another blink, her body was tilting out of the seat. With a frown, she righted herself and stared at the papers in front of her. And blinked.

What was all this?

Symbols that made no sense, evidently. Reminded her of the weird Russian pages she sometimes stumbled on while searching for gaming cheats. Geez, why did she even have this? She shifted through the papers, searching for her notes for this class, immediately noting the soreness in her hands.

What? That wasn't right, she hadn't overextended herself today. Shit, don't be a flare...

Takane raised her hand, and was out the class in minutes with her backpack. She'd be damned if she fell asleep at her desk again.

* * *

><p>Takane sat up, rubbing her eyes. She promptly set her head down between her knees, covering her face as she waited for her body to catch up to waking up. The worst of the vertigo faded after a few minutes, and she slipped out her phone to check her messages.<p>

Haruka hadn't woken up yet today. Go figure. He'd struggled to even stay awake over the breakfast she forced him to eat. He probably fell asleep in his parents' car and been asleep since then.

A few gaming newsletters, some friend requests, a weird letter from a fan...it was like a weird blast of nostalgia. There was a nagging feeling with each glance at everything, like the aphasia she sometimes had that kept a word just out of reach, just at the tip of her tongue. She needed this in coding, stat.

Takane sat up again, and flopped her head back on the pillow, rolling over and staring at her phone. Stupid illness. Why did it have to get in the way of everything? This was why she enjoyed being Ene so much.

But Ene didn't have Haruka. And that was the most frustrating part of it all. Ene had no restrictions and no Haruka. Takane had restrictions and Haruka.

It wasn't fair.

Takane stared at the wall for a few minutes before sitting up again, and finally standing. "I'm going back to class," she told the nurse on her way out.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes<em>

I don't actually know if the blood pressure thing in that last scene is a ME/CFS thing. I know that the muscles giving out thing is a ME/CFS thing. Funny thing about chronic illness; you get used to it.

Classes in Japan are odd. You stay in one classroom, in one seat, all day, while teachers switch out for different subjects. Disability accommodations are evidently really odd as well. Two students for one classroom, but in one part of the manga, Takane falls asleep during a classroom dull of other students.

A plot hole is in the process of being fixed in succeeding chapters.

We have hit the 10k mark! *throws confetti*


	7. End of Part 1

Chapter content: prescription drug use

**Requited Love**

"Are you really up for attending classes today?"

"...can you stop asking me that, please?"

"You haven't answered the question," Takane pointed out, not falling for Haruka's pleaded attempts to direct the conversation elsewhere. "Are. You. Okay. For going to class?"

"You know the answer is no!" Haruka finally burst out. He blushed at his outburst, and turned away from her. "I'm just on edge," he apologized in a soft voice, looking away.

Takane's eyes widened, and she looked down. "Didn't want to miss any more days?"

He made a soft sound, one they both knew to be an affirmative for when their heads just weren't up to so much movement as a nod. "I sneaked some painkillers."

"Please tell me you only took the recommended dose."

"It helps a bit." He looked away for a moment, making a humming sound, and smiled. "I think. Thinking you're not in pain is the next best thing anyway, right?"

She shot him a glare. "It means you're going to crash at some point." She sighed. Damn the persistence of idiots. "Just go to the nurse if you need to lie down, okay? You're scatterbrained enough as it is without a flare making the fog worse."

"I know, I know. Where are you going?"

Takane stopped, having starting on the way to Shintaro's classroom. Haruka had turned in the direction to their homeroom with Tateyama. Their schedules had been organized in such a way to allow them both ideal resting times between the classes they had, to break up their day and settle with a light course load. She shot him a predatory grin. "Tell Sensei I'm actually learning something for a change."

Haruka didn't react at first, then returned the grin with one of his own. "You're going to have to tell me about it later," he challenged, and continued on his way to homeroom.

Takane fist pumped out of his line of vision, and was thankful for two things: that he'd approved of her decision, and that he'd gone to homeroom, probably to fit in some extra sleep, like she normally did. She couldn't help but think Haruka was proud of her for jumping on an opportunity like this. This day was already looking up.

She made her way to Shintaro's classroom, and ended up walking in a circle before she found it, having only a vague remembrance of where it was. Honestly, even without the brain fog, she still carried her memories of being a computer program, and school felt like years ago. She finally found it, and walked in with yesterday's confidence, sitting down beside Shintaro. Few paid her any mind beyond a simple glance, and she pulled out her notebook and pencil again. She shot a determined glare to her future master before jotting down the practice equations to start on them.

* * *

><p><em>Coding. <em>

"That's it!" Takane burst out. "It's perfect!"

"Huh?" Kenjirou looked up from his book, startled by her outburst. "Hm, yes, yes, it is. I'm glad you think so, I spent a lot of time working on it while you were asleep."

Takane blushed, and hid her face. "Not you, just... I just thought of an amazing idea, okay!"

'Amazing idea'? What was she, five? Sure, being Ene brought a childish personality with some ridiculous phrasings, but being Takane, in her world of fatigue, she just felt annoyed at herself. At everything.

"Ah." Kenjirou appeared to deflate. "I should be teaching you, you know. I can't give you points for participation if you don't participate."

"I'm talking to you, isn't that enough?" Takane sunk her head to her desk before an idea came to mind. "Teach me about your nerd hobby. Your programming."

His lips tugged to a slight smile. "It's a difficult subject to teach. You certainly don't need to know it unless you're thinking of going into computers. Anyway, would you be able to handle the extra load?

"Duh."

"Why the sudden interest in programming, if I may ask?"

"I'm bored."

"Boredom? You could be improving your score on that zombie game."

Low blow. "I told you to shut up about that!"

"On pain of informing the administrator, but alas, the festival is over now, and you no longer have such leverage." He was teasing her, she just knew. She couldn't just swear at a teacher, no matter how much he deserved it.

Takane turned her head away, sulking. Haruka stared back, and gave a small wave. She bristled, blushing as she realized he'd been there the whole time. "W-what are you smiling for?!" she demanded. Her voice definitely didn't come out screechy, no way.

Haruka chuckled, lowering his hand to pick up his pencil again to return to work on his drawing. But not before he answered with a word that threw her heart for a loop; "You."

Her blush deepened. A retort died in her throat.

"I think it's a super cool thing to want to learn about, I've never considered it before. You're amazing to think of it, Takane." He raised his eyes to the board, as if he could see all the possible codes before him that he could learn about, determination shining on his face. "I want to work harder, like Takane. I want to learn more. Coding would be a great start on that."

The declaration took Kenjirou by surprise. He collected himself as his two students looked to him for direction, and smiled.

"If you think you can handle the extra work..."

Hope swept over them, and their smiles widened.

"...then I'll talk with the administrator about adding another course to your schedules."

Horror struck their expressions. Takane felt as if she'd been punched in the gut, and heard a similar choke from beside her. Instantly, they protested.

In the clamor of objections, Kenjirou raised his hands in defense. Haruka silenced, and Takane's shrieking died down to grumbles."...or I could teach you coding basics, since I'm already here."

That proposal went over with sighs of relief. Takane threw an eraser at their sensei.

* * *

><p>It was Kenjirou, their sensei, to ultimately give Takane the idea that made a light bulb go off. Just a simple wording that brought everything together.<p>

"In just a few years, it might become possible to store your entire self on computers," he had added, explaining how computer data could be compressed to as few bytes as possible. "Theoretically, you could store everything about yourself on a flashdrive with a few compression programs, but that's technology of the future, of course."

That was it. All she had to do, store Haruka into a compressed file, and create a program to make him into a cyber being just like her. She almost stood up yelling, "Eureka!" Instead, she stood quietly, staring at their sensei as the blocks fell into place, a good ending appearing in this run around through her past.

Too quickly it became obvious that she didn't have time to procrastinate on this project if she wanted to have a chance before that unfortunate day. There were only so many days in a year. The calendar didn't just count down days. As the days, hours, passed, Takene found herself jumping between sitting at a desk and buzzing from app to app on Shintaro's electronics. From cyber girl to school girl, time passed erratically, and she would find that entire hours and even days had passed between her jumps.

School time passed much slower, and Takane found herself repeating a day or two on occasion, with different results, or return to find something different than remembered had happened. Likely from her tampering with the timeline or something like that. She didn't know which video game theory to follow.

Theories and coding and Haruka, oh my. Something had to be done before it was to late, Takane thought grimly to herself, before Haruka died for a second time. She didn't just want to tell him she loved him; she wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. Taking a deep breath, she approached Shintaro.

"Kisaragi. You're smart, you help me with this project. It's a bunch of computer stuff."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes<em>

Sorry for the hiatus!

Short chapter and rushed transition so we can get to the good stuff.


End file.
